So much for the existence of the Coral Formation. Next comes the question of its origin, with which, of course, we are chiefly concerned. It is now the received belief of all distinguished Naturalists, that these huge and wide-spread masses of limestone rock, against which the breakers of the ocean are ever thundering in vain, are the work of tiny marine animalcules, and chiefly of those seemingly insignificant creatures known by the name of Polyps or Zoophytes. The Zoophyte, they tell us, is a mason who himself produces the stones that he employs in his building. “He has neither plane, nor chisel, nor trowel; there is no sound of hammer in his city. He erects mighty and enduring edifices, yet has no mechanical power by which to raise his rocks to their summits. He can answer thee nothing--no tongue, no eyes, no hands, no brains has he--yet from the caves of old ocean has he raised that which fills you with admiration.”[53] Surely if all this be true, these countless myriads of animalcules call aloud to us from the depths of the ocean in language that cannot be mistaken: “Know ye that the Lord He is God; it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.”[54] The Zoophyte belongs to the simplest form of the animal creation. Its body consists merely of a pouch or stomach, with tentacles arranged round the margin, which it can extend at pleasure to supply itself with food. In many species the individuals grow together on a common stem, from which new members are constantly shooting forth like buds from the branches of a tree. Hence the origin of the name Zoophyte, which literally means a plant-like animal. The common stem on which they grow is sometimes composed of a horny substance, but more generally it is pure carbonate of lime, which they secrete by the powers of organic action from the waters of the sea. It forms, therefore, a kind of internal skeleton or framework, to which the soft, gelatinous parts of the animal adhere, pretty much as, in the case of other animals, the flesh adheres to the bones. Thus we have, as it were, a community of living creatures, growing together upon one common stony framework, called a Polypidom or Polyp edifice, which they themselves build by the very fact of living. [Illustration: Fig. 4.--Campanularia Gelatinosa.] [Illustration: Fig. 5.--Gorgonia Patula.]